Day Four
by Dr. Breifs Cat
Summary: When Tony returned home on his fourth day sober, Pepper was waiting for him.  Comic-verse, after Invincible Iron Man #510


**Disclaimer:**Iron Man and all related properties are owned by Marvel.

**Notes:**This story was proofed by the Invincible Robot Iconography. Many thanks to Robot. I could not have done this without you!

**Day Four**

"You have surveillance cameras in your bedroom," Pepper announced, a moment after Tony entered the room.

He was shocked.

Not because he'd been bugged - Tony had suspected that would be the case - but because Pepper had made herself somewhat scarce since his return to Earth. And yet, here she sat, cross-legged in the center of his bed: shoulders rounded, elbows propped on her knees, fully armored except for her helmet.

He hadn't been worried; he had her repulsor implant monitoring her vital signs and relaying the information back to him. He'd been excusing the invasive nature of such a thing by telling himself repeatedly that it was for her sake, but this was a lie, and a flimsy one at that. He had monitored her in the name of his own peace of mind. It was a compulsion he intended to curb, on behalf of his future - and hopefully greater - emotional health, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to shut down the feed just yet. In the battle to wrestle control of his life from his more obsessive tendencies, this was a lower-tiered concern.

Refraining from drinking was no longer enough - he was obsessive, controlling and easily lead astray by a woman flashing a little leg. His company was built on selling himself - his technical skill and his celebrity. He was looked upon as a leader and role model by some of the most powerful people on the planet. Compared to the damage he could do by using his power irresponsibly, the steady beat of Pepper's life in his ears was a minor, even harmless, crime.

Tony had known she was safe. Avoiding him, perhaps, or maybe just busy - but safe. _Alive_, at least.

He certainly had not anticipated seeing her when he finally dragged his weary body back to his own suite for the first time in nearly a week. Accommodations at Stark Resilient were somewhat less than he was accustomed to. His bedroom was sparsely furnished - bed, bureau and desk. The living room was not much better, and the bathroom and kitchenette were tiny and drafty. The company was still young. For now, Wyche's generous donation of this building was the most anyone could provide. If he didn't get his act together, it was doubtful how much larger the company could grow.

It was his fourth day sober. It felt to Tony like it should be a momentous occasion, but it wasn't time to celebrate just yet. Between the headlines implying that he'd been piloting the armor drunk, and the subpoena intent on proving it, someone had declared war on his person. No, the fact that he was being bugged did not surprise him.

"JARVIS disabled them," Pepper continued.

"Who am I putting on a show for?"

"The signal bounced off too many relays," she explained, hair swaying gently as she shook her head. In the months since he had built the latest iteration of Rescue, her hair had grown so long that Tony was quite curious about the logistics of getting it all into her absent helmet. "We lost it entirely before we found the source."

JARVIS was nearly as good as him in technical skill, but not quite. While programming an artificial intelligence capable of learning was not beyond him, Tony had yet to create one that fully captured human ingenuity. "Next time, tell me about it before you disable them," he warned. "JARVIS may not be able to get around the weakening of the signal, but I can."

Pepper crossed her arms and muttered, "You're welcome," then, "Okay."

"Thanks," he said awkwardly. She didn't move. He swung the desk chair around to face his guest instead of the computer. Tony sat, ankle crossed over knee. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"My armor's broken."

That explained the missing helmet, he thought. "Can you take it off?"

"Yes," she answered. "I think. I haven't tried, but articulation is fine and I don't think the emergency releases are damaged."

"How long have you been wearing it?" Tony inquired, his brow furrowed.

"Four days."

"Getting a little ripe in there," he teased.

"You'd know," she retorted. "What's the longest you've gone without taking the suit off?"

He flexed his right hand. "Seven months."

Pepper pursed her lips. "You're counting..." she waved an arm towards him as she chose her words, "When it's inside you?"

"Yeah."

"How come?"

The question was too vague for Tony to be sure what she was asking. She could be wondering why he considering having the liquid armor within his body to be the same as wearing armor on the outside. It was a valid question, one he had turned over in his mind many times — but not the one she was asking. No, he imagined she wanted to know why he would go so long without daring to part from the Iron Man, whether it be hiding inside the suit or hiding the suit within him. He hadn't had any decent rest in days. As much as he hated being vulnerable, he was just too tired to deflect. "I don't always like the person I am when I'm not wearing it."

"You're always you," she answered.

Tony grimaced. "There are different 'me's," he protested. "It's a little schizophrenic."

"That's not what schizophrenia is," Pepper answered flatly.

"You know what I mean. I feel like a different person. I act like a different person. I like the Iron Man more than Tony Stark. Sometimes, I need to be the Iron Man."

She tutted.

"I sense disapproval."

"Tony Stark is more important to the world," Pepper said. "You do more good with your business than superheroing."

"I know."

She looked surprised. "You do?"

"I like it more, the superheroing."

Pepper frowned at him. "Don't you get scared?"

"Of course."

"What do you do?" she pressed. "When you get scared?"

"Kind of depends," Tony answered with a slight shrug.

"On what?"

"Plenty of things."

Her gaze dropped to her armor-encased wrist. Pepper worked the fingers of one hand into the catch-release of the other gauntlet. The casing on her forearm popped open, exactly as designed, allowing her to shed first her sleeve, then her glove. "Do you ever wish for someone to come save you?"

Genuinely blindsided by the question, Tony leaned back in his chair. He had thought once the subject of fear came into it, the conversation would inevitably steer directly to the subject he was dreading. It seemed impossible to think that she had not seen the news circuits, that she was not waiting for his confession. "No," he answered.

She sighed deeply, like his answer wounded her.

"People have better things to do than save me," he answered. "I generally hope they don't bother."

"That's horrible," Pepper hissed.

He shrugged. "Maybe. But look - part of this whole superhero gig is sacrifice. We take all of this on ourselves so that other people are safe. If I'm on the bad end of something, you can bet that same something is going to do a hell of a lot worse to someone without armor, probably a lot of some ones. So I say, leave me. Save them. If I can't honestly think that, why do this at all?"

"I'd come save you," she said, reaching for her shoulder. The upper arm released as easily as the forearm.

He grinned. "Thanks."

"I mean it," she chided. The more he smiled, the more short with him she became.

"So do I. Not just the saving," he added. "The strip show is nice, too."

She rolled her eyes. "Tony, it's broken. How can you fix it if I'm wearing it?"

"That would actually depend on what's wrong with it," he answered.

Undaunted, she continued to snap the suit off piece by piece. Pepper added, "I'd have better things to do, too. But I'd still make the time. To save you, that is."

"I'd make the time for you, too."

"Not always."

"Yes, always." Before he could stop himself, he reached out and cupped her cheek with his palm. He had noticed she was pale when he walked in, but the clamminess of her skin surprised him. She shook her head, dislodging his hand. He cursed himself. Trying to touch her, Tony reminded himself, was not a change. It was part of the destructive pattern he was trying to break. This particular part of the puzzle was the bit where he obsessed over a woman who did not return his affection to the detriment of himself. So used to being on the receiving end of attention, he had created the bad habit of misinterpreting her actions towards him. So many of the little things she did, her looks, her posture, her touch seemed impossible to him to interpret as anything but a romantic inclination towards him. Even the way she explained herself so often sounded to his ears and his ego like a confession of their own - she told him how she didn't want him too much. Tony knew she valued him, but he had to stop fooling himself. No matter how it appeared to him, the things she offered him and the things he was searching for were not the same.

"Not always," she repeated.

Quiet reigned between them as Pepper sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. As she worried at it with her teeth, Tony grew apprehensive. It was difficult to remain cavalier when she posed so many personal questions that he could not lie about; more so, when she was so visibly distressed. It was too late to offer his protection. He had nothing else of value to give her.

Pepper's lip popped out of her mouth. "I went to Paris," she announced. "I saw the people. And what that monster did to them."

"Oh," he breathed weakly. "Pepper."

"He almost did it to me." She shrugged. "I...I didn't know where you were. We tried to trace your repulsor signature, but it was gone. Off the grid. You could have been dead for all I knew. And I went to Paris because...well, I had to do something. I was scared, but that didn't matter. I have this suit. I'm a superhero. This is what we do. So I went. And it was..." Tony was about to supply 'nightmare' when Pepper continued. Her words tumbled out rapidly, uncensored and urgent. "Words don't really describe it. He destroyed the city. There was no one left to save. Hammer sent troops in, you know? Sasha and a few others. They smashed people and tried to kill me and left me to face whatever that thing was on my own." She spread her arms wide with the declaration, "So, I'm there, facing down this monster and I know he's going to kill me. And all I wanted was you." Her arms fell.

"And I hated myself for it and the more I think about it, the more I'm right to hate myself for it. At first, I was mad because I felt so weak. I shouldn't need you to save me. But now I'm thinking - it's selfish. You were out there saving the whole damn world with whatever it is you do and here I am wishing you would prioritize just one tiny, insignificant person."

Tony swore viciously. Pepper screwed her eyes shut and wrapped thin, pale arms around her stomach. He was willing to wager that, while she didn't know any dwarven profanities herself, the meaning was not lost on Pepper. He breathed out hard, trying to compose himself. Her story made something inside of him tight, wound with such pressure that he could not breathe, much less speak. That Odin, the Allfather, saved every soul of Paris did not seem like such a miracle in the face of the suffering in Pepper's story. She still carried with her the fear, the anger and the exhaustion with her. Sick guilt welled within him.

Her life had been a comforting, steady beat inside of his head. He'd had no idea she stepped so close to the Serpent's Worthy.

"You were supposed to be safe," he ground out.

"No one was safe!"

"I didn't make that armor so that you could go out and fight eldritch abominations!"

"What kind of a person sits at home when they can do something?" she demanded. "Who the hell do you think I am that I should have this power and do nothing with it?"

"You weren't ready for this!"

"God, were _you_? Who was _ready_ for what was out there?"

"Pepper." He didn't have an answer. He only had her, mercifully alive, despite his negligence.

"No one," she pronounced.

"No," he agreed. "No one was. Look, Pepper, I went back. The Avengers are helping clean up, so I went back to Paris. Pepper, all those people... They're okay. They're fine. They all get another chance."

Wonder flickered over her face before she shut her eyes. "I hate feeling like this. When is it going to stop, Tony?"

"I don't know."

"I haven't slept in days."

"Armor isn't comfortable, no."

"It's not that. My brain won't shut down. You say they're fine, but I close my eyes and I can still see it."

He moved from the chair to ease himself onto the edge of the bed. "I'm right here," he offered. "I should have been there before. I'm sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am for everything I did that wasn't be with you. Anything you need from me right now, you can have it. Carte blanche. Go nuts. You want a mansion on Jupiter or a new armor or just damn cup of coffee, it's yours."

"Nothing so extravagant," she answered, shuffling against his side. "I'd just like to stay here tonight, if that's okay."

"Okay?" he mused with popped eyebrows. "I insist. It's stick around or go wandering the building in your undersuit - which, by the way, looks like underwear. You might want to think about requesting equipment that doesn't cater to my baser fantasies while you have the chance. Limited time offer."

She snorted, which made him smile. "Your base fantasies involve sports bras and granny panties?"

"Well, you know, I'd have you in a thong and a little lacy number up top, but that would short out poor JARVIS."

"You are lucky you're cute," Pepper said, leaning away. "Most guys who design perverted AIs don't get any action."

"That's because they don't know how to market it," Tony scoffed. "Money is the most potent aphrodisiac."

Pepper slid off the mattress, paced a bit, turned to him and asked, "How many girls have you slept with since..." she trailed off and after a moment, finished her question with, "Paris. How many girls have you slept with since you saw the monster in Paris?"

He pulled a face. "How many girls have I been with since the fury of a scorned god razed the Earth? _None_," Tony spat. "I've been pretty busy."

Pepper nodded sharply once.

It was like something out of a dream. She descended upon him slowly, yet purposefully, her face set in grim lines. Pepper lowered herself onto his lap, legs spread, her knees bent around his hips. "Tony," she implored, "I need to feel good about something right now." Her fingers curled around the back of his neck and her thumbs braced themselves against his jawbone, pushing so that he looked up at her face. "I need something to push all these awful thoughts out of my head. I need to sleep. I need - I want you to make that happen. Can you do that for me? Please?"

"Yes," he rasped, "Yes, yes, let's do that."

She pressed her cheek against his briefly in thanks. Her hands, her hands with those tiny, freezing fingers that he ached to warm, moved to his shirt buttons. It was a liquid construction - as soon as Pepper made it clear that she wanted that shirt gone, it melted and receded into his body. Her breath was on his neck, followed by her lips. This part of her was hot; the heat and the moisture - her tongue and her teeth - the sensations made him groan, made his cock swell. Tony wound his fingers in Pepper's hair and only through the greatest degree of self-restraint that he could muster, did he not push her head down. Tonight was not for him, tonight was for her. Unless Pepper decided that she needed to suck on his cock to fulfill herself - and he dearly, dearly hoped that she would - he would subsist in the warm haven between her legs. His hands traveled down, past her shoulders and busied themselves with the task of stripping the upper piece of her under suit. Her breasts were warm, soft and pliable in his palms with hardened little nipples. Playing with them made her gasp. In his lap, her ass wiggled as she sought friction.

Tony wanted this experience to last - he wanted to build a _memory_. It hurt that he had forgotten their previous encounter. He didn't think he would be able to forgive himself if there was even a single moment of this night that he did not remember in exact detail. She had propositioned him. She had been waiting for him, in his home, and sought to sleep with him once he got there. Pepper had been through hell, and she was glad to be alive. That was all. He was not going to get another chance to be with her.

He tumbled backwards, causing Pepper to collapse on top of him as he did so. Tony seized her ass and hauled her up the length of his body. Her open legs pressed against his torso. She radiated heat; he could feel it against his belly. His pants were gone, disappearing within him as his shirt before. His erect cock bobbed in the air, unrestricted and more than ready to be driven inside of her.

He pressed one hand between her shoulder blades, drawing her down and allowing him to catch one of her nipples in his mouth. The noise she made was gratifying. Pepper braced herself on one arm, holding herself at an angle that best allowed Tony to lavish attention on her breast. Her other arm curled around his head, holding him there. When he used his own free hand to skim along the cleft of her ass and lightly trace circles around the sensitive recess he found, Pepper dug her nails into his scalp.

"Tony," she gasped, "Tonytonytony."

He wasn't sucking on her tit anymore, just _kissing_ it, and answering would mean he had to stop. Her legs clenched around his midsection. Regretfully - because he didn't have any lube and he suspected pushing a digit into her ass would yield spectacular results - he shifted his attention down the length of her thigh.

His name escaped from her lips again, but this time, it was not an exultation or a plea for his attentions. She panted and swallowed and said, "Tony...condoms?"

"Not yet," he murmured against her skin.

But she said, "Tony, please," and defeated, he gestured to the bureau by the bed. Condoms were one of the few disposable products he still had use for. He bled and sweat into his liquid armor. While he could project prophylactics in theory, in actual practice they would be too unhygienic to be of any use.

He continued to kiss every bit of available skin as she crawled across him to reach into the drawers. His hands busied themselves with sliding the remaining half of her undersuit down her legs. Once it was free of her feet, he discarded it. With the treasure she sought in hand, Pepper moved along his body again, this time traveling until she squatted on his thighs. Tony was still on his back, but he propped himself on his elbows, watching her assess his cock. Pepper met his gaze, closed one hand around his prick and pumped up and down once, twice, three times. He licked his lips, grunted and thrust into her hand.

She smiled. She didn't look so tiny and pale anymore. No, she was rosy-cheeked, proud and determined. Pepper was all that existed in his world.

"Thank you."

Her words, so softly sincere, threw him. Awkwardly, Tony answered, "Don't mention it."

She ran her fingers up and down his cock, maddeningly lightly. "I know. It's not like you aren't getting anything out of the deal."

"I'd still do it," he blurted. "Even if there was nothing in it for me, I'd still give you anything."

"I know," she said simply. Her smile turned crooked. "But you are getting something out of it." She scooted back until she was resting on his shins. Pepper wrapped the thumb and forefinger of one hand against the base of his cock and squeezed, hard. She leaned over and down to take just the head of his prick into her mouth. The scant seconds she spent lavishing oral attention upon him was a brief treat before she pulled away entirely. It had been done with affection, he wanted to think. An act done with love. He knew he was projecting. Those had been Pepper's, _Pepper__'__s_ lips around his cock.

And then Tony was not thinking anything, because she was rolling the condom onto him.

And then she was sitting on him.

Pepper had taken the entirety of his length into her pussy, where the heat, the slickness, the squeeze consumed him. And while he had found the build up to this moment too short by far, he would not have traded it for anything. Pepper braced her hands on his chest and she moved, riding him. He gripped her hips in his palms and rocked, working with her and against her, adding to the speed and the friction until she was crying out.

Pepper received the orgasm she wanted, the orgasm she needed, but Tony knew he could do better than that. The coordination had left her limbs, and he struggled against the onslaught of pleasure to sit up as much as he needed in order to wrap his arms around her and flip their bodies. With Pepper was on her back, Tony took one leg, hooked it over his hip and continued to thrust, fast and deep. He bumped her clit with each plunge and soon, he had ripped another orgasm from her. His ego was satisfied with his performance, but Tony was nowhere near finished with her. There was so much more he still needed to indulge himself on before the night was over. He had not tasted her yet and there was still so much of her body left to explore.

But, _priorities_.

Tony continued to thrust, deeply, wildly, building towards his own completion. Pepper heaved with his every movement, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her hands grasping fistfuls of bedding. He loved the sight of her, sweaty, flushed and ecstatic. His orgasm rocketed through him.

For a long time, it was all he could do to breathe. He stayed joined with her as his dick softened, watching her inhale and exhale so deeply. In the quiet stillness, the frantic minutes they had spent gorging on each other was a recollection that seemed out of place. Finally, he accepted that he needed to disengage from her body. Tony removed the condom carefully and hauled himself to the bathroom to dispose of it. When he returned to Pepper, he was disappointed to see she had wrapped herself in blankets and shuffled herself over to the far side of the bed.

"I'm gonna go," he announced, feeling unspeakably rejected.

Pepper rolled over to face him, blankets still drawn about to protect her modesty, as though she had not bared everything to him. "It's your room."

"I shouldn't have woken you."

"I wasn't asleep."

"I can stay," he offered, "until you fall asleep."

"You don't have to," she answered. "It's fine. I'm fine." He nodded. "Where are you going to go?"

"Other room," he answered after a long moment. "I'll sleep on the couch."

She sighed. "I'm not going to beg you to stay, but you don't have to leave. It's your room."

"I'm not going to try and read too much into this," Tony explained. "It didn't mean anything."

Turning away from him, Pepper said, "Sex happened and you had it, so presumably not."

"Just making sure we're on the same page," he replied flippantly. Her words didn't hurt as much as they should have. It was a bit alarming, but he was growing increasingly desensitized to his sensationalized reputation. "I'd hate to make this awkward."

"I should be the one who goes," Pepper sighed.

"You should -?" Tony started, "You want to walk out of here in the middle of the night in your undersuit?"

Vexed, she said, "No. I should have thought about this would look before I came here."

"You meant for this to happen," he said.

"Not really," she sniffed. "After everything...I just needed to see you."

Seen him, she had. "Mission accomplished."

"I guess part of me considered it might go that way," Pepper admitted with great reluctance. "I know what people say. I know how we look." She shifted, sitting up, knees drawn to her chest and awash in bedclothes. "I know what you want. I know how I felt."

His breath hitched.

"Miserable," she pronounced distinctly. "And alone. Useless. You wouldn't have said no and my ego needed the boost," she concluded.

"You are not that selfish."

"Stop putting me on a pedestal. I'm a human being, Tony. I can, believe it or not, be selfish. Maybe sometimes, I just want to matter to someone."

"You do," he said, "You do, you absolutely do and I... I am going to leave," Tony paused, "before I say something both of us will regret."

In hindsight, his dramatic exit was a childish way to escape the situation. She had finally given up trying to stop him - if trying was the word - and he had conjured up a pair of sweatpants from his inner reserve because he would do many things, but Tony was not going to be chased out of his own bed naked. Pepper didn't follow.

Tony dropped himself onto the sitting room couch, defeated, and tried to assess his situation. Pepper held power over him. Whether she meant to or not, she used to her advantage. She influenced him, moved him, ruled him. He couldn't deny her anything. He received dismissal in return, and yet steadfastly refused to change his approach. He sought the affection he was not receiving from her anywhere he could find it, and in turn was unable to reciprocate what was offered to him. He allowed her to use him and he used others, but he didn't stop there. His celebrity, his reputation, his power, his words - he used all of these things to create advantages for himself. Yet, he was a man with nothing. The only thing he possessed that he truly valued had been his sobriety. Even that had slipped so easily away from him.

The window dressing had changed, the details had changed, but everything that had tipped him over the edge years ago was present in his life today. The work he had done to set himself up for success had crumbled so slowly that Tony had not even noticed that he had fallen into all of the same traps. He had lost Stark International and he could not remember how. His relationships with his friends were strained, the result of years of trying to protect them and failing. He had been scorned by the woman he loved. The bottle was there, a gift from people he knew better than to trust. All he had needed was an excuse to take that first sip. Paris had been more than enough for that.

There were things in his life that he could control. The need to drink was one. It was the greatest challenge he had ever been faced with, but he had years of successfully managing it in his corner. If he could do that, he was capable of doing anything. He would build a better tomorrow, he would repair what he had broken. He would keep moving forward, even though the thing he wanted to do was to stop.

The very last thing Pepper's implant told him before Tony shut down the relay was that her biorhythms were consistent with that of a deep sleep. He didn't do it to prove to himself that he could; he had always known he could. He did it to exert his power over himself. He did it because it was the right thing to do and because she deserved her privacy. He was satisfied with this single gesture. He won't be saving himself with just one change, he knew that. The journey would be a series of small steps. This was merely one.

Tony realized he had nodded off somewhere in the night when he awoke to hear the shower running. He had not anticipated falling asleep so easily after all that had happened since Pepper's arrival. He stroked the stubble he had grown during the night as he turned on the television.

As he suspected, he was still the favorite topic of discussion on most of the major news networks. Bad press for the Iron Man had been a simple thing to counter when he had a secret identity. He could publicly denounce the golden Avenger's actions and claim to have replaced the pilot. The perceived crimes of the Iron Man were never those of Tony Stark, and vice versa. Each identity had been a way to escape the stress of the other. Now that the public knew they were one in the same, he no longer had another face to hide behind. They ran footage of the Iron Man while condemning Stark; while calling for the retirement of the Iron Man from the Avengers, they showed years-old photographs of Tony in disheveled business attire.

He flipped through the channels, taking in bits and pieces from each story. Stark Resilient stock was dropping. The comparison of a drunken armor pilot to drunk drivers was popular. Tony had issued no official statement yet, something several programs noted. One station used the incident to argue in favor of the Superhuman Registration Act. The pundit claimed this was ironic, rather spectacularly missing that Tony's own argument in favor of SHRA had been deeply rooted in his own failings and the fact that there had never been a governing body capable of stopping him.

Tony was set to shut the television off when Pepper wandered out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. "Tony," she called, "can you -"

Her question died on her lips as she froze, staring at the screen and its brightly illuminated talking heads. She turned to him slowly and over the din, asked, "Is that true?"

He was taken aback by her clear shock. It wasn't like Pepper to be uninformed about current events, especially ones regarding him or the company. He nodded.

Pepper, clasping the towel to her breast, sunk into the cushions beside him. "How long -?" She started. Sadly, she murmured, "You were doing so well."

"Yesterday was my fourth day sober," he admitted. "I thought you knew."

"Oh, Tony." Delicately, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "How could I have known?"

Frustrated, he gestured towards the television. "It's all over the news."

She gnawed on her bottom lip. "What are you going to do?"

"I got sober," he answered. "I'm going to stay that way."

"It's not that easy," she protested.

"No," he agreed. "It's the hardest thing I've ever done, but that's the way it has to be."

She nodded. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I actually don't," Tony replied. "Here's the thing: I wasn't doing well. It's easy to delude myself into thinking if I'm not drinking - if I'm not doing that one thing - then I've got it under control. And that's the trap because I don't see myself getting knocked down until I'm already there."

Slipping one arm around his shoulders, Pepper leaned over and kissed his temple. "Talk to me. Let me help. You have helped me so much over the years," she said, "I can't thank you enough for everything you've done for me." He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head. "I really can't. Let me finish. You're a better man than you know. Let me be there for you."

In her arms, he said, "This is something I have to do for myself."

"That doesn't mean you have to do it by yourself."

He smiled. "Thank you."

Pulling back, Pepper inhaled deeply. "I'm sorry," she said.

Tony raised his eyebrows.

"About last night," Pepper clarified.

"Last night," Tony pronounced, "was wonderful. Okay," he amended, bumping his shoulder against her, "you could have smelled better, but the parts that were not perfect are all on me."

She shook her head. "I was being selfish. I didn't think at all about how you felt about anything or what you might be going through. I knew you'd be there for me, so I took what I wanted. That's not okay."

He snorted. "I offered you anything. You made a fine choice."

"I used you," Pepper stressed gravely.

Flippantly, Tony answered, "I often enjoy being used."

"This isn't a joke, Tony," she pleaded. "I don't want to hurt you or contribute to anything..."

"You are not responsible for me," he ground out. "I did all of this to myself. I could have stopped or changed at any time and I didn't."

She didn't appear convinced.

"I actually do possess some self-control," he added.

"You're impossible," she huffed. Underneath her frustration at his deflection, the guilt was still apparent.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Tony stated. Despite the bitterness he harbored over it, his powerlessness before her was not her fault. In the light of day, blaming or villainizing her was unjust. "In fact, I am 100% positive you are not even capable of doing the wrong thing."

"I'm a human being," she protested. "I'm not perfect. Maybe I haven't made quite as many mistakes as you, but I do make them."

"If it bothers you that much," Tony said, "just be straight with me." If he knew what sentiment she was trying to express with her actions towards him, it might at least make it easier to stop misinterpreting her in the future.

"I told you everything!" Pepper cried. "About Paris and... I was tired. I felt sick." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I couldn't stop thinking about you. I just needed to see you."

"The thing I don't like about this explanation of events," Tony reasoned, "is that seeing someone and going to bed with them are actually different."

She sighed. "I guess I needed to go to bed with you, too." She cracked one eye open and watched him. "A little bit," she added with a frown. "You could have slept there. I'd have liked that."

He shrugged, not really satisfied with her answers. She turned away from him in bed, but talked like she wanted him. She needed to sleep with him, would have liked for him to have stayed beside her. "Next time, then."

"There's not going be a next time," Pepper told him sternly. "That is the absolute last thing in the world either of us need."

"You just told me that you need it."

"Our lives are a mess," Pepper protested. "We're under attack from every direction." Ticking off on her fingers, she listed, "Saboteurs and spies and the news... I was their target before you were. I didn't know how to deal with Rescue coming under fire. I wanted to talk to you about -" She shook her head, focusing her energy on the topic at hand. "You're stuck on this idea of you and me. It's never going to work. I learned that last time and right now? You need to focus on yourself. I can help you find things that are healthy, if I can, but I don't want to add to your stress or send you over the edge again."

"No, you're right," Tony nodded. He was interested to know what she had learned about him last time. This time, he was learning that not a single one of her arguments refuted the very engaging idea that she needed him. Every problem she encountered, she presented to him, looking for his solution. She relied on him to make her feel good when she was hurting. When she felt alone, she beseeched him to show her that she was valued. She stayed in his bed when she struggled to sleep. She took on his enemies, both his inner demons and the specters out to get him, as her own. It was never about Pepper not wanting him; it was about Pepper not wanting to want him. Her armor was broken. Her shell had protected her for months, but without it, she admitted that she needed him.

He could change, Tony knew. He could change; he could work hard and become a better man. Or, he could go after the thing he wanted.

"This is the worst idea I've ever had, but here's the thing: I don't care. _I__don't__care._ I want it too much. If I'm going to go out, I damn well better enjoy it."

"That just makes you sound like an addict," Pepper said warily.

"I'm always going to be an addict," Tony admitted. It was the hard truth. "That's never going to change. If I'm going to be addicted to something, the best I can do is someone who's looking out for me."

"I don't want to be a part of you destroying yourself," she maintained.

"I will try not to," Tony vowed, cupping her cheeks in his hands. "I have too much going for me to give it all up now." Bad decisions and good decisions were not so mutually exclusive.

"You are a better man than you know," Pepper repeated. "Please, try to see that." As she spoke, he combed her hair with his fingers, letting his fingers dance lightly over her neck. Gooseflesh blossomed along her shoulders and chest. Her breathing grew shaky as he continued his ministrations. He leaned in to kiss along her jaw, pleased with her shudder. Her arms wound around his shoulders, leaving her towel to slip precariously down her body.

"Never going to happen again," he scoffed against her skin. "It's happening again already. Tell me about how much you need me."

"I think it's your turn," she countered. "And if you think I'm doing anything with you before you've brushed your teeth," Pepper added impishly, "you have another thing coming."

"Same to you," he returned, matching her playfulness. He couldn't tear himself away from her warm, clean, welcoming skin. The words were already a lie.

"I already borrowed your toothbrush," Pepper sniffed, tipping back to allow him greater access. "And I was going to ask you to go to my apartment to get me some clothes."

"I will," he promised, taking in the sight of her. "_Later_."


End file.
